


Before You Were Here

by SD_Ryan



Series: After You've Gone Fic and Podfic [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pseudoscience, Shrunkyclunks, That's it, Time Travel, bucky just wants to love him, do not look too closely at the historical details, like seriously hand-wavy explanation for time travel, seriously that's not why i wrote this and i'll be sad if you comment on that shit, steve is a sad puppy, that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25794049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SD_Ryan/pseuds/SD_Ryan
Summary: “Don’t—” The guy croaks. “Don’t be afraid, okay?”“That’s asking a lot, pal, considering you’re in my home and ain’t got no reason for it. And you still haven’t told me where Steve is.”“I’ll tell you where Steve is,” he says in a barely-there murmur, “but you have to try to listen to me. I’m gonna turn around. Don’t freak out.”Why would he—?And, oh. Okay. That’s why he would freak out.He hears the muffled thud of the book falling from his hand; his fingers are numb, his ears are full of cotton, and his vision is swimming, but still, he can see well enough to know that that face—the one on the gigantic stranger in his apartment—that is Steve’s face.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: After You've Gone Fic and Podfic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842997
Comments: 19
Kudos: 215





	Before You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> It only took me four years, but here's the other half of the story. If you ever wondered what was going on with old-timey Bucky and newfangled Steve during the events of After You've Gone, here's the answer.
> 
> Since I've been focusing on visual art during the time I've been away from writing, it felt terrifying and wonderful to get back on the horse. Please be gentle with your comments. 
> 
> xoxo,  
> s

He’s under attack. 

The world is ending. 

Mortars rattle in the distance, a blast of light blinds him, and he tastes ash on his tongue.

Bucky is surely going to die. 

“ _Steve_ ,” he moans. “Cut it out.”

From his bed, Bucky squeezes his eyes against the light and smacks his tongue over the sour taste of liquor and cigarettes. His head is pounding. Noise from the kitchen crashes through the open bedroom door, and when he manages to peel a crusty eyelid open, Bucky can see the curtains have been maliciously pulled aside. The clatter of pots and pans in the other room reaches a crescendo before Steve’s saccharine response breaks through the clamor.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I being too loud?” A drawer slams. “I just wanted to make my best guy some breakfast after his night out.”

Bucky moans and tugs the blanket up over his head. The scent of bacon wafts through the thin protection, and he gags. 

Bucky Barnes knows that Steve Rogers is the best thing to have ever happened to him. Steve is a friend, a lover, and a partner, all in one. He’s fire and passion. Loyalty unbound. He’s a giggle in a church pew and a whisper under moonlight. He’s charcoal-stained fingertips, bird-boned grace, and the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. He’s wiry speed and bloodied knuckles. Soft caresses and mean kisses. Utterly fearless and infinitely breakable. Righteousness personified. Steve is everything to Bucky and the love of his life.

And when he is angry, Steve Rogers is the most vicious son of a bitch the world has ever seen.

“Stevie … please. Can we cut the dramatics?” Before the words are out, he knows he’s made a tactical error, and the explosive silence from the next room confirms it.

Bucky sighs.

The thing is, it wasn’t even his idea. Bucky likes to socialize, likes to go out and knock back a few after a long week, but he’s just as happy to stay home with Steve reading pulps or sharing a tussle under the covers. He was set to do the latter last night, but Steve made some noise about how it had been weeks since he’d been out, and maybe Bucky should put in an appearance at the local dive. His heart sank, knowing Steve was right, knowing they were always only a few whispers away from having their cozy little world turned upside down. 

He enjoys the company—the music, the laughter and chaos. He likes throwing a dame around the dance floor and wiping sweat from his brow after an hour of good clean fun. He doesn’t like pretending. The flirting that has to go with it. The sharp eyes watching him, the glossy red lips pressed together in anticipation of a kiss.

There’s nobody in the world he wants that isn’t Steve, and he hates that no one can ever know.

But Steve says go out, so he goes out. He starts with a shot to loosen up, then has a beer with a buddy from the docks. He has a few more to distract himself from the brunette trying to catch his eye, and another to steel himself when she drapes her body over his in an open invitation. Even though it goes nowhere and he extracts himself with a slurred excuse and cheeky grin, by the end of it all, he’s drunk too much and smoked too much, and comes home reeking of perfume and regret at ass o’clock in the morning. And Steve Rogers turns from enabler to vision of fury. Bucky can’t win.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” he says, trying to cut off Steve’s next offensive. In spite of the pain, he pushes himself upright. “I didn’t mean to stay out so late.” 

_It was your idea_ , he doesn’t say. _You told me to go._ That defense, he knows from experience, would not go over well. Because Steve lives with the impossible conviction that Bucky can perform his cad-about-town act without leaving a stitch of evidence of performing said act. Schrödinger’s playboy.

The silence from the other room is heavy, and Bucky lurches to his feet. He swallows back the taste of bile and takes deep, steady breaths as he crosses the room. “Stevie? You gonna talk to me or what?”

Steve’s shoulders are up around his ears. He’s leaning over the cooktop, fire off, breakfast still sizzling in the skillet. He’d be a statue of frozen rage but for the slight tremble Bucky detects rocking through his frame. In his heart, Bucky knows Steve is angry at the world, not him, but the world isn’t here to take its licks right now, and Steve’s got no place else to direct his impotent wrath.

“Did you have fun?” his voice is tight, savage.

Bucky winces. The question is a holdover from a time before. When he was younger and stupider, sometimes he’d go with girls. Sometimes he’d do more than flirt. Back when he wasn’t sure what he was, wasn’t sure what he wanted. Back before he knew that stepping out with girls was just playing a part. Before he could see how much it cost Steve to watch Bucky perform his role so expertly.

“It was just killing time. Not good or bad. Just showing up to show up.”

Steve doesn’t move. Doesn’t seem to breathe.

“Nothing happened, Steve.” He knows trying to explain away the late hour or the wilted-rose smell clinging to him wouldn’t do any good. Steve will only hear what he wants to right now. “I promise. Nothing’s ever gonna happen when I’m out there.”

The silence stretches, a clock ticking down to Steve’s verdict. At last, Steve deflates. His shoulders drop, and he motions to the abandoned skillet—“Some breakfast here, if you want”—and Bucky knows he’s forgiven.

“Thanks, pal,” he says, finally approaching close enough to touch Steve. He leans down and presses a slight kiss to the back of his neck. “I think I’ll just have some coffee for now.”

“Suit yourself.” Steve scoops eggs and bacon onto a plate and sits.

Bucky pours two cups of coffee and joins Steve at their scarred, hand-me-down table, meeting his eyes at last.

Bucky’s not allowed to use the words he wants to right now. Not allowed to tell Steve how he feels. They don’t say that. Steve gets prickly in the face of softness, rejects the attempt to define what they have. Bruises and blood are Steve’s armor, and sometimes violence is the only way Bucky can express what he feels. He can’t say what he wants. But he can take Steve’s hand and lift it to his mouth. He can draw the knuckle of Steve’s index finger between his teeth and bite down gently. 

_I’d swallow you whole, I love you so,_ Bucky says with his gaze. _I’d burn down the world for you._

And Steve’s mouth twitches his approval.

——————

Steve is placated enough to leave Bucky to the rest of his post-revels misery in peace. Steve’s got a delivery gig he does on Saturdays and Sundays, in addition to whatever odd jobs he can pick up throughout the week, and he leaves for the grocery as Bucky does the breakfast washing up. Bucky has the day off, so he pulls the dusty drapes, closes the bedroom door, and crawls back into bed to sleep off the rest of his hangover. 

Some innumerable time later, Bucky is woken by a clatter in the kitchen. He’s hit by a lurching sense of  déjà vu , wondering if Steve has talked himself back into being upset, has decided on a renewed attack of culinary revenge.

There’s a muffled “What the hell?” from behind the door, and Bucky scans the darkened bedroom for some hint of the time. Steve’s usually gone until suppertime on delivery days. Bucky doesn’t think he slept that long, but who knows, with as much pain as he was in this morning. He pushes out of bed and tips back the curtains to reveal the midday sun. Steve shouldn’t be back this early. 

“Hey, guys, what’s going on?” Steve says with a note of desperation in his voice. “Seriously: Tony, Bruce. This isn’t funny.” 

Who the hell are Tony and Bruce? Did Steve bring people home?

They don’t bring people home. As small and intimate as it is, their space tells a story they can’t afford to share with the outside world.

Bucky slips through the bedroom door, carefully closing it, and hiding the incriminating view of their shared bed from outsiders. As he turns toward the open space, he covers his feeling of ill-ease with bluster—“What’s got your shorts in a twist, Rogers?”—before pulling up short at the scene in front of him. There’s a man, a strange man, a _Goliath_ of a man, scrambling for the front door. Steve is nowhere to be seen and this guy is in his home and what the fuck is going on?

“Hey! What the hell are you doing here?” 

The guy is halfway out the door, and the only thing Bucky registers is the fact that Steve was _just here_ and now he’s not, and this guy must have something to do with it. He’s picturing Steve struggling against this fucking mountain of a man, and he’s full of pumping adrenaline and panicked anger. Bucky grabs for the closest thing at hand, a hardcover book sitting on the arm of the sofa, and raises it, ready for God knows what.

“Wait! The fuck did you do with Steve? I just heard him—where is he?” 

Mountain man stops short, hunching over and pulling his shoulders up to his ears. He pauses there, mid-exit, seeming to debate something. Then he steps back with a heavy exhale and closes the door. Bucky realizes he’s now closed in with the pumped-up intruder, and this has decidedly not improved his situation. He grips the book tighter, feeling ridiculous and wishing he had something more substantial like a bat, maybe, or a knife. He’s got nothing to defend himself with but righteous anger if it comes to a fight.

Bucky still can’t see the guy’s face, but his ribs are starting to accordion, and his fist is turning white where it’s gripping the doorknob.

“Don’t—” The guy croaks. “Don’t be afraid, okay?”

“That’s asking a lot, pal, considering you’re in my home and ain’t got no reason for it. And you still haven’t told me where Steve is.”

“I’ll tell you where Steve is,” he says in a barely-there murmur, “but you have to try to listen to me. I’m gonna turn around. Don’t freak out.”

Why would he—?

And, oh. Okay. That’s why he would freak out.

He hears the muffled thud of the book falling from his hand; his fingers are numb, his ears are full of cotton, and his vision is swimming, but still, he can see well enough to know that _that face_ —the one on the gigantic stranger in his apartment—that is _Steve’s face_.

“Bucky—” The stranger ( _wearing Steve’s face_ ) is walking toward him, gentling with hands raised.

He doesn’t know he’s retreating until his back thumps into the wall. 

“How do you know my name?”

Out of a million things he could say, he’s not sure why that’s what comes out. Because as the man draws closer, it seems much more pertinent to ask why he has Steve’s voice or why he looks like Steve or why both of those things are happening in a body that is the size of a fucking tank. The guy is still moving toward him, like he wants to cradle Bucky in those meat paws, and that _absolutely cannot happen_.

“Stop!” he shouts. “Just stop!”

The imposter jerks to a halt and seems to hunch even further into himself. It’s like a funhouse version of Steve, the overgrown lug trying to make himself smaller and less threatening, while in contrast, his tiny guy spends so much time aggressively puffing himself up.

“What.” Bucky chokes on the word. “I’m mean. What the _fuck_.”

“Bucky, I know you must be confused—”

“Who _are_ you? Why do you—” Bucky gestures to the whole of the guy’s massive figure as if that articulates everything he has to say. “Steve’s face. I mean, you have _Steve’s face_.” 

“I know. I’m sorry, I know. I don’t know how to explain in a way you’ll understand, but it’s me, Bucky. I’m Steve.”

“And I’m Jimmy Stewart,” he shoots back, feeling hysteria creep in. His palms are sweating, and his body’s attempt to burrow into the wall behind him doesn’t seem to be working. “Sure, you’re Steve. You just gained two hundred pounds of muscle since breakfast. Some trick.”

Not-Steve takes that in, and something loosens in his posture. His mouth twitches up. 

“You’re way more handsome than Jimmy Stewart, Buck. I’d say you’re more of a Cary Grant type, if anything. I mean the dimple alone.” 

“I—what? Did you just. Did you just call me _handsome_?”

“Call it like I see it, Buck.” And the guy honest to God, _bats his lashes._

“What the fuck are you talking about!”

The smile that had been creeping up on the guy’s face falls like a stack of bricks. He shrinks in on himself, back to the gentle giant routine. Bucky doesn’t know why, but it’s somehow more unsettling than his awkward flirtation.

“I’m sorry.”

Nothing about this moment makes sense, and the undercurrent of fear and hyper-vigilance thrumming through his veins hasn’t gone away, but the kicked puppy look on the guy’s face ( _on Stevie’s face_ ) does take some of the bluster out of his sails. The guy’s demeanor is so strange and strangely familiar, it’s giving Bucky vertigo.

“Look, I don’t know what’s happening. You say you’re Steve. You look like him and sound like him.” Bucky huffs under his breath, “And apparently you flirt like him.” He shakes himself and gets back on track. “But this isn’t some sci-fi novel, and I know Steve didn’t get a body transplant since he walked out the door this morning, so you gotta give me more than ‘I don’t know how to explain.’ ”

He shrugs. “These days, our lives actually do resemble science fiction more than anything. Can we—” He steps back. Moves toward the kitchen table and gestures. “Sit? Maybe give me a minute to sort through everything?”

“Some time to come up with a lie?”

The guy sighs, looking defeated before he’s even begun. “I know you don’t owe me anything. But can you give me the benefit of the doubt, for just a minute? I’m struggling here, too, Buck.”

Bucky searches his face for … something. He’s not sure whether he wants to see his Steve there or not. The earnest hope he sees on those familiar features is so vulnerable, so unlike Steve in many ways. In spite of that, he finds himself responding to it. 

“Fine.”

Still, neither of them move for a long time. Bucky, because he’s not sure he wants to get closer, while the other guy looks like he doesn’t want to make a move without Bucky’s say-so. His head is starting to throb, and he just wants to get to what comes next, whatever that is. He motions to the chairs at the table, sliding one out and sitting. “Steve” carefully folds himself onto the one opposite.

The man bites his lip, brows furrowed, and Bucky takes the time to get a better look. He’s a perfect match for all of Steve’s base features: crooked nose, sharp cheekbones, intense gaze. But his jawline is carved out of marble, and there are fine lines around his eyes and mouth that don’t exist on Steve’s face. He looks sadder, somehow. Worn down.

“I’m Steve, but I’m not exactly your Steve,” he says, carefully breaking the silence. He gestures to himself. “I mean, this didn’t happen today.” 

If he thought this murky situation was going to get any clearer, Bucky was obviously mistaken. “Then when did it happen? I saw Steve this morning, and he sure as hell didn’t look like he could bench press a truck when he walked outta here.”

“From your point of view, it happens later. At some point in our lives, I turn into this. I don’t think I can say more about it than that.”

“That’s not saying anything!”

“Look, I don’t know why. And I think I only kinda know how. But I traveled here from the future.” He plows ahead, in the face of Bucky’s incredulity. “I mean it, I’m not kidding or lying or trying to trick you. I swear. I’m Steve Rogers. Born in Brooklyn in 1918. Best friend of Bucky Barnes since I could throw a punch. I’m still me. You just don’t know _this_ me yet.”

“You’re from the future. That’s what you’re going with.” He waits a beat, but “Steve” merely shrugs. “Okay, great. Thanks. You can see yourself out now, I think.”

“Bucky, you _know_ me. I swear.”

“Oh yeah? What do I know?”

“I love you, Buck. You know that.”

Something cold flops into Bucky’s stomach, a dead fish sickness squirming up his throat. “I’m sorry, pal,” he says with a watery sneer. “If you really were my Steve, you’d know that’s the last thing he’d say.” 

The guy looks heartbroken, a wave of pain washed across his face. “Your Steve is a fucking idiot! He had no idea what he could lose, and he just—” He slams his fist against the table, and Bucky flinches back. “This Steve, your Steve, every Steve in every fucking universe _loves you_ , Bucky Barnes. _Every_ version of you. Sometimes he’s just too big of a moron to admit it.”

It’s the voice that does it, wrenches something inside him. Hearing those words in that voice is all he ever wants some days, and the ballooning hope taking hold of him is too great to ignore. He’s silent as Steve goes on.

“I spent a lot of years thinking someday you’d find someone better, someone worthy of you, and that when you finally did, when you went away, it would hurt less if I had never said how I felt. But you went away, and it doesn’t—” His breath hitches against a sob “—it doesn’t hurt any fucking less.”

“Steve…”

Bucky stands as big blue eyes spill over with tears. He pulls that unfamiliar frame against himself and feels a prickle in his own eyes. He doesn’t know how it’s possible, but he does believe that it’s true.

——————

Bucky was eight years old when he met Steve Rogers. 

His mother had just given birth to Bucky’s third sister and had hardly been out of bed for days. Bucky knew babies required constant feeding and care; he had been through it all with Becca and Claire. But that didn’t make him miss his Ma any less. 

With Da at work and him the man of the house, he was sent to Stein’s, the corner store, for a few things for the evening meal. As he stood there, meditating over rows of canned goods and baking supplies and sweets, he couldn’t get the image of baby Rosie out of his head. The little usurper in his mother’s arms, an occupying force, a barrier to his fundamental source of affection and love. It had been months since he’d been allowed in his mother’s lap—first prevented by the swollen belly and now by the baby. It had been just as long since he’d spent any time alone with her at all, and he was angry and full of resentment. He deserved … something. Something nice. Something to make him feel good. He jangled the coins in his pocket, and he knew what the money was for, knew he would be punished for coming home with anything more or less than was required. So he pocketed a piece of candy for himself. Something sweet, all his own. Not for Becca or Claire or stinking Rosie.

He was lost in thought, gathering the groceries his mother had requested, when a small voice hissed at him, “Put it back.”

He looked around, gaze falling down, down, to a little tow-headed boy with a pinched expression. 

“What?”

“You heard me.” Chin-jutting bravado in a tiny frame, the boy looked pointedly at the pocket where Bucky’s contraband candy was hidden and said, “Put. It. Back.”

Bucky almost laughed. There was so much fire in the kid’s eyes, like a storm cloud cracked through with lighting. He didn’t know how someone that small could contain all that fierce emotion. When Bucky didn’t move or speak, the boy raised his fists in the most brazen rejection of self-preservation Bucky had ever seen.

He did laugh, then, “Okay, okay. You got me, pal,” and slipped the candy from his pocket to set it back on the shelf. “Sorry.”

For a second, the boy looked uncertain, like he wasn’t actually prepared to be listened to. Then he dropped his fists, and with significantly less heat, said, “You shouldn’t take stuff that isn’t yours.”

Bucky nodded, abashed. For some reason, he didn’t want this strange boy to think poorly of him, but he didn’t have any clear way to explain why he’d done what he’d done. The stupid impulse of it and the way he had been feeling so lonely and unseen. Instead of addressing it at all, he said, “I gotta take this stuff back to my Ma, but I could do something after. Go to the park and play ball, maybe. Wanna come?”

Even more confusion passed through those fierce blue eyes. Bucky just smiled back at him until the boy warily shrugged. 

“Okay.”

“I’m Bucky Barnes.”

“Steve Rogers.”

“Nice to meetcha, Stevie.”

Steve’s mouth twitched upward in a half smile, and to Bucky it was like a burst of sunlight in his chest. As they moved toward the front of the store side by side, Bucky thought that for the first time in a long time, he had maybe found something that was all his own.

——————

Bucky discovers that as much as this Steve may resemble his Steve, there’s something very different about him. He’s shrunken, somehow. Not in form, clearly. There, he’s as swollen as a prizefighter. But his spirit, his essence. Something of the fire has gone out of this Steve, and as much as Bucky likes the new vulnerability he isn’t sure it’s a fair trade for the things he seems to have lost. 

They spend the afternoon trying to get their bearings. Steve is cagey about some things, less so about others. He seems to be walking a verbal tightrope, careful not to spill too many details while giving Bucky enough information to keep him from spiraling into anger.

As far as he can tell, Steve underwent some kind of medical experiment that turned him into this overblown wet dream. Stark’s name is mentioned, and that sort of explains a lot. The procedure fixed all his health problems. Put him in position to be on some kind of special … team. It’s vague, and Steve won’t define it any more than that. He says his friends are probably working on the time travel thing, which seems like a hell of a risky thing to just take on faith, but Steve says that randomly popping into his old apartment in 1940 Brooklyn isn’t even the strangest thing to have happened since his “change” and, well, Bucky has no idea what to do with that.

He won’t say how far in the future he’s from, but he doesn’t look like he’s aged more than a decade, so Bucky can do the math on that. He wonders what it’s like in that time, what he’s like. Steve is completely mum when it comes to Bucky’s future, but he wonders if he’s a part of this team Steve is on. He has a hard time imagining Steve going off to do something like that without him. 

He thinks they should be doing something besides yapping about everything Steve can’t or won’t tell him, but it’s not his show to run, so he goes along.

Steve’s on his third helping of lunch (“Sorry, Buck, but I have kind of a big appetite these days”) when something occurs to Bucky that sends a chill down his spine. He’s making a joke about how at this rate Steve’s basically consumed what his Stevie eats in a week, when he realizes that they maybe shouldn’t leave all the sci-fi stuff to chance.

“What about paradoxes?” he says standing from the table with a jolt. “What happens if you and Stevie are in the same space together? Couldn’t that trigger … I don’t know, something bad? Like, universe-imploding-bad? He’s gonna be back in a few hours—”

“Yeah,” Steve says, catching on. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I gotta make a phone call.” Bucky doesn’t wait to explain any further, just goes out to the communal phone in the hall and dials the grocery. The Steins have been looking after Steve since his Ma passed, keeping the delivery job open for him whenever they can. He knows calling like this might threaten Steve’s job under different circumstances, but the Steins think of Steve like family.

Steve, the new one, the big one—he’s gotta figure out how to distinguish them better—has followed Bucky into the hall by the time he gets through.

“Hi Mrs. Stein, it’s Bucky. I was wondering if Steve is in the store by any chance.” 

“Bucky! I was just thinking I should call you. Eunice Olsen never received her package this afternoon, and we sent Steve out with it over an hour ago. I thought maybe he got into some trouble and you ought to take a look around the neighborhood.”

Bucky glances at his watch and puffs out a breath. “Would you say that was around twelve or so? That he went out?”

Mrs. Stein pauses and hums. “Well, that was about when Abe was coming in with the bread delivery, so yeah. Around noon sounds right. You think you know where he went off to?”

“I’m not sure. I know he wouldn’t just leave you in the lurch without a good reason. I’ll try to track him down, okay?”

“You do that. Tell him I don’t want to see him back here if he’s all scraped up. No bleeding on the merchandise.”

Bucky huffs a laugh and thanks her before signing off. He turns to Steve with a wry expression. “I don’t think we need to worry about you two exploding the universe. Seems like Stevie got swept up into this time travel mess with you.”

Steve considers that, and frowns. 

“Huh.” 

For a moment he looks uncomfortable, and Bucky is sure he’s holding something back. 

“Well, I’m sure my friends will take care of him. Anyway, I guess it’s better than him coming in here and trying to punch my lights out.”

And Bucky can’t deny that that is probably exactly what Stevie would do when faced with his giant doppelgänger. He pictures it as they head back inside the apartment, little Stevie puffed up and ready to defend his turf, and he suddenly misses him so fiercely it hurts.

——————

Bucky and Steve’s first kiss began with a punch.

Bucky had been stepping out with Louisa Baxter for the last few weeks, taking her to the dancehalls and sneaking a few minutes alone when they could. Steve’s Ma had passed the previous year, and he and Bucky shared a place now. It didn’t feel right to be bringing girls around their apartment, so the night had ended with a kiss on Louisa’s stoop and a promise to call. As he wandered toward home thinking about it, he wasn’t sure he would. She was a pretty dame, lithe and blonde with big blue eyes, and Bucky knew he should have been sweeter on her than he was, but he just couldn’t seem to get excited about the prospect of more. Felt like he’d just been going through the motions without knowing why.

He heard a clatter and thump from the alley as he passed, and something told him to stop and check it out. He was absolutely not surprised to see Steve bent over and breathing heavy, hissing his frustration like an abused alleycat.

Bucky grinned and some unseen weight lifted just looking at Steve. “Guess you’re gonna tell me I should see the other guy, huh?”

He would have been less cavalier if it looked like Steve had sustained any real damage, but he was walking on his own, and there weren’t any obviously broken bones or open wounds. He’d probably have a shiner, the way one eye was swelling up, but other than that he looked more embarrassed than anything.

Steve glared from under his swooping bangs and started to shuffle home without a word. Bucky fell into step with him. Bustling Brooklyn had tucked in for the night, and they were alone, save for the twinkling stars watching from overhead.

“Nice night out,” Bucky mused. “Great for a smoke in the park or night of dancing.”

Steve fumed and picked up his pace.

“Or a fight in the alley, I suppose. Personally, I’d choose an evening in the company of a pretty girl over fisticuffs, but to each their own.”

“Did you have fun?” Steve snapped back, and Bucky heard some deeper hurt in his voice than could be explained by his recent scuffle.

For a moment he thought about giving voice to the easy lie, like usual— _Sure thing. Had a great time._ *wink* *wink*—but Steve’s sour mood left him feeling raw and uncertain. 

“Not really, no.”

It took a moment to notice Steve had fallen behind, and when he turned back, Steve was still on the pavement, studying him.

“What?”

Steve didn’t say anything, just furrowed his brows and shoved his hands deeper in his pockets before taking the final block to their building. Bucky followed, feeling something heavy building in the air between them. He had no idea what had caused this shift, or Steve’s disquiet, or the maudlin feeling suddenly come over him. But it felt important, somehow. Something he shouldn’t try to brush aside with a joke.

They settled into home in silence, Steve slowly removing his jacket and laying it over the arm of the sofa.

“What caused the fight, Steve? What happened?” It wasn’t until the words left his mouth that Bucky knew this was probably the answer to Steve’s odd behavior. 

“Guy called me a fairy and then punched me. Not much more to it than that.”

Bucky sucked in a breath and went still. 

It wasn’t like he didn’t know what people thought. Steve was small and pretty, and if you didn’t know how scrappy he was, you might mistake him for some of the boys going with other boys you saw around. Steve had started plenty of fights for good reasons and bad, but it wasn’t right, hitting a fella just because he looked a certain way.

Steve had his back to Bucky, and it hurt to think about how he’d been so flippant when he first found Steve in that alley bent over and in pain. “That ain’t right, Steve. I’m sorry.”

“Why? It’s true.”

The words were a murmur, low and flat. Bucky wasn’t sure he heard right.

“What’s true?”

Steve turned then, eyes flashing defiance. Daring Bucky to do—what? He didn’t know.

“I am a queer.” Steve pulled his shoulders back, standing to his full height. “I asked the guy if he wanted to go someplace private, and he socked me one.”

“But…” Bucky reeled, trying to find something substantial to grasp onto. “But, you ain’t never said. How can you be sure?”

Maybe if Steve had been defensive or angry or scared or any number of other things, the moment would have gone sideways, not ended how it did. But Steve wasn’t any of those things. He just looked at Bucky like he was the dumbest mook on the planet, stepped into Bucky’s space, took his head in his hands, and smacked him on the lips.

“Cause I know, you idiot. Now are you gonna throw me outta here or kiss me back? I need to know, one way or the other.”

And for Bucky, once he studied on it a moment, the answer was simple. He kissed him back.

——————

When it finally comes to him, Bucky could smack himself with how stupid he’s been. 

It’s been hours since Stevie should have been home, and Bucky knows this is really happening in a bone-deep way that he didn’t quite believe before. They’ve spent the evening tip-toeing around everything the big guy can’t or won’t say. They’ve played cards and listened to records to kill time, and it’s all felt incredibly useless to Bucky, who just wants to be _doing_ something.

He just can’t figure it out. There’s this opportunity, this incredible feat of science or magic happening _right now_ , and all Steve wants to do is sit here with him? It’s like he’s here just to soak in the atmosphere, relive some dusty shard of memory and wade in a pool of grief. Because the fact that Steve is mourning something is written all over his face.

The conversation from Steve’s first arrival floats back to him, and it drops like lead in his belly. In the heat of the moment, it hadn’t really registered. Steve had said he left, that Bucky “went away.” It’s such an absurd idea, he’d dismissed it without much thought. But it was true to Steve. It was painfully real to him.

“When you said I went away, you didn’t mean I left you for someone else. You meant I died, didn’t you?”

Steve grows eerily still, eyes wide.

Bucky plows on. “Because the thing is, it’s going on fifteen years since I met you, and as far as I can see, there’s not a damn thing either one of us could do that would make us give up on it now.”

Bucky’s pacing the room, trampling over any opportunity Steve might have to interrupt.

“I mean, you _time traveled_ to me. You’ve been watching me with these sad puppy eyes like you want to burrow yourself under my skin, and you’re so full of grief it’s a wonder you haven’t drowned yourself in tears yet.”

He stops in front of Steve, boxing him in.

“What is it? Is it the war? Does America get dragged in? Am I gonna bite it over there?”

“Bucky, stop! Please!” Steve retreats across the room. “I don’t know what I can say. I don’t know if I can do anything to fix it or if anything I do will just make it worse. I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m here, but nothing makes sense.”

It’s not good enough. Under the fire in his blood there’s a sense of cold terror creeping in. Bucky can feel the walls closing in on him, the threat of death just around the corner. Is Steve only here because Bucky’s time is almost up? Is this some hopeless goodbye from beyond the grave?

“Steve. You gotta give me something or I’m gonna believe my ticket’s up every time I walk out the door. I’m gonna think every day is my last.”

Steve slumps over against the wall, propped up with those huge paws on his knees. “You aren’t dead, Bucky.”

And there’s relief there, but only a little.

“Then why do you miss me so much?”

Steve looks like he’d rather chew on glass than answer the question, but he chokes out a response anyway. “We’ve both changed, and you don’t. You don’t want me anymore.”

Bucky crosses the room, careful not to spook him. He sets his hands on Steve’s shoulders and waits for Steve to meet his eyes. “That sounds like crazy talk. Are you sure?”

And there he is. Bucky’s Steve, looking at him like he’s the dumbest mook on the planet.

Bucky kisses him. 

He knows it’s probably crossing a line, knows there’s probably some cosmic emotional calculus he should be accounting for right now, but he doesn’t care. For a second he saw his Stevie in those eyes, and he fell in love all over again. This Steve deserves a little happiness, even if it’s just a moment lost to time.

——————

The first time Bucky and Steve attempted sex was a disaster.

After talking about it some, Bucky worked out that Steve had been trolling that night, out looking to pick up a stranger, that first night he and Bucky kissed. But it had been more out of desperation than any real knowledge of what he might be getting into. Like everything else, he had planned to muscle his way through and damn the consequences. But he’d been punched and sent packing, and Bucky had picked him up out of the gutter and changed their lives.

When they finally got around to trying anything more than kissing and heavy petting, neither of them knew what they were doing. They had some of the theory down, but they didn’t have any slick, and Bucky had no idea how essential that would be. After a few failed attempts that cut off with Steve yowling like a Tomcat and Bucky refusing to hurt him, they’d given up on anything more than a long make out session that concluded with wet, sticky hands. 

They worked out the kinks eventually. Got to be pretty expert at the whole thing with a little practice. 

Their first try was a demonstrable failure, but what Bucky remembers most from that night was the laughter, the eager joy that infused the room in spite of their fumbling innocence.

——————

Bucky takes Steve to bed. 

It doesn’t take much convincing to get him out of his clothes and on his back on the creaky old mattress. Legs spread, blush rising, he is a study in human architecture—soft curves over hard plains, enticing hollows and corded muscle. Bucky looks his fill, and Steve lets him. It’s so unusual to be allowed the luxury of admiration. His Stevie is brittle in the face of tender looks, unnecessarily self-conscious. 

Under the soft streetlight glow, here in the room that holds so many memories, it’s hard not to make comparisons of what was and what is. His Stevie is beautiful, sharp and delicate like a honed blade. But this Steve, this Steve is all monstrous sleeping potential, like a hibernating bear. Like a towering ocean wave.

Bucky’s own wave of desire crashes against Steve’s shore, and the night is lovely and long.

——————

“He might never say it, Buck, but he does love you.”

Outside, Bucky can hear the shopkeepers opening their doors, setting out crates of produce on the pavement. It’s early still, and he and Steve have dozed some. The whole night feels like a fever-dream, and the only thing grounding him to the here and now is the gentle rise and fall of Steve’s chest under his cheek.

He replays Steve’s words, the record of his mind skipping in confusion. What does Steve mean by saying that? How is he supposed to respond?

“He’s scared and stupid, but he won’t ever love anything the way he loves you.”

Bucky feels his eyes prickle with tears, but sucks in a sharp breath to keep the emotion from spilling over. He feels the flutter of Steve’s heart under his cheek and turns to press a kiss there. “You know I could say the same thing, right?”

Steve rumbles a challenging retort deep in this throat. “You don’t know what happened, Buck. What he’s been through.”

“Don’t matter, punk. If I’m in there somewhere, he loves you and won’t ever stop.” Bucky meets Steve’s eyes. “Maybe you need to be patient with him, or remind him somehow, but it’s written in his blood, Steve.”

He takes Steve’s hand and draws his index finger to his mouth, teeth pressing down on the knuckle. 

_I’d swallow you whole, I love you so. I’d burn down the world for you_.

Steve draws in a watery breath and nods.

——————

When the end comes, it happens with a devastating mundanity.

They have showered and cleaned up a bit. Fed themselves and settled into a quiet domestic ease. Bucky is reading one of his tattered pulps and Steve is watching him silently from the other side of the sofa. Bucky can feel his eyes on him, a loving gaze that he meets after turning a page. He shoots Steve a wry smile and returns to his book.

Then there is a flash of light and a feeling like his ears popping, and Steve is gone.

Steve is gone.

And Stevie is here.

They are both still, one on the couch, one in the middle of the room, their identical expressions of shock frozen like petrified amber. Then Steve looks around, body tight, ready to spring. There are so many questions in his eyes.

“I was on the street,” he says. “I was making a delivery.”

Bucky stands and opens his arms. Steve looks like he wants to argue, like he’s gearing up for a fight. 

“You’re home now. You’re home, Steve.”

Steve is bowstring-taut, looks to be on the verge of snapping. Then he huffs out a breath, takes a stumbling step into Bucky’s arms, and surrenders. He lets Bucky hold him. Lets Bucky be soft. It’s only a moment, but for Bucky it’s enough.

Later, when the sun has set and Stevie is asleep in his arms, Bucky reaches out to the absent figure in his mind and says a silent goodbye.

_________________


End file.
